Cold Water
by Nikki1212
Summary: The Fourth Shinobi World War had come to a close with one final battle hanging over the horizon. Weary from constant exposure to death, Sakura sought the one thing her heart desired most: to fight beside her boys. But an errant jutsu throws her plans for a loop and catapults her to a land where demons roam free and shinobi don't exist. There has to be a way to get back, but how?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Inuyasha.**

 _ **Author's Notes:**_ _Wow, after lots of reviews stating how much they hated the drabble format, I have listened. I compressed all of the first few chapters into one._

* * *

 _"If you feel you're sinking_

 _I will jump right over_

 _Into cold, cold water_

 _For you."_

* * *

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This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

When Sakura had been thrust into war at the tender age of sixteen, she thought that it would be over quickly—that the combined strength from the Shinobi Alliance would be enough to lay waste to their enemy. She knew it would not be easy, but she had naively hoped with all of her young, wishful heart that they would have been _enough_ to stop Uchiha Madara.

She was wrong.

The Fourth Shinobi Great War persisted for _four years_ and had taken the souls of _so many_. Young and old, friends, lovers, fathers and mothers—none had been spared; and as a medic, she felt the loss keenly. Many had died under the exhausted glow of her hands—hands that were trained to save and yet could not—and each was a blow to her already wounded heart.

Kakashi had once told her that war never changes.

Over the hush of a rare peaceful night and by the glow of a melancholy fire, his weary voice echoed in her frightened skull: War _never_ changes. The agony, the bloodshed, and the unraveling of the warrior's mind would remain long after they had gone. Human greed would forever be the precursor to conflict and misery; and blood would be spilled in the name of everything.

Mankind could destroy the world, and still war would not change.

* * *

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When she was thirteen, Sakura killed a man.

He wasn't a very good man, she remembers. He had been a part of a group of bandits that were terrorizing a small civilian town north of the battlefield. She knew that she had been right to kill him, that such scum could not be allowed to walk amongst them, and it had been a matter of life or death. But to her dismay, she found that no amount of justification for his death could keep her from weeping over _h_ er kunai buried in the neck of a corpse.

She was almost sick under the weight of her shame, and had turned her head away from the unveiled look of disgust and pity her teammates had sent her way. The boys on her team had made their first kills over a year prior, but because she had been so _weak_ she had been the last of all of her friends to purposely kill someone.

The thought made sobs shudder through her body, and she was unsure of what she had been ashamed of most: murdering a man or her aversion to it.

* * *

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Kakashi had been the one to gently pull her away from the growing puddle of blood under her knees, and she winced at the squelch _her_ kunai made as he retrieved it for her. She followed his figure through her tears until they came across a clearing and sat down with her back against a tree. The boys ignored her as they went about setting up for camp, and the wide berth they gave her made quiet, pitiful sobs rack her small frame.

It wasn't until a gentle hand was placed on the crown of her head that she forcefully stemmed the flow of her grief, and the kind empathy she found in Kakashi's sole eye made her dissolve into tears once more.

It was enough for her that he _understood_ her pain, because Sakura knew she would _never_ come to understand all of the sorrow her sensei held in his own soul; but the calm reassurance he offered her eased some of the weight.

"Does it get easier?"

And though her words were almost whispered, years would pass and Sakura would still see the heartbreaking defeat in the eye of the strongest man she knew as he replied similarly,

"Yes."

* * *

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When Sakura was fourteen, she killed a woman whose eyes were the color of the sea.

She didn't know anything about her. She didn't know her name or age, but she knew her eyes were blue and her hair was silk between her fingers when she tilted her head to slit her throat.

The nausea and tears still come when she washes off the blood in a nearby stream, but they are soon swept downstream along with the blood of the second life ended by her hands.

Sometimes, when she visits Wave Country on different missions, she thinks of silk and blood and drowns.

* * *

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As she aged, death became routine and it surprised her to know that it had started to mean more to her than life.

Death meant she was getting better; death meant she must work harder; and it was through death that she came to know her place in the world.

Becoming a medic under Tsunade's tutelage cemented its role in her life, and it was through her that Sakura learned to hold it in her hands and control it.

But when she saves the life of a child in one village and then takes the life of a man in another, Sakura thinks she can finally understand the loss in Kakashi's eyes that night so long ago.

There is honor in her intentions when she takes a life, and that makes it easier.

But she no longer thinks of the color of their eyes, whether or not they preferred the sunrise over the sunset, or if they had a family they would never return to.

And that, she thinks, is the greatest death of all.

* * *

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War never changes, and Sakura finally understands that.

But this was _not_ how it was supposed to go.

She was the strongest medic in the Shinobi Alliance after the heartbreaking passing of her mentor, and still with all of her prowess in her field, she can't seem to stem the blood flowing from the gaping hole in her friend's chest.

Neji's breaths are shallow as he coughs blood from his last remaining lung and TenTen is screaming at her to _save him;_ and Sakura can't because the damage is _too much_ and all she can think about is how much pride he took in his hair, how he loved sunrises because they reminded him of new beginnings, and how the woman struggling behind her will never know how much he loved her.

Her heart is tearing at the seams when TenTen breaks free of Lee's hold to sob into the palm of Neji's bloody hand as he takes his final breaths, and for a moment Sakura is angry that the war raging around them has ignored their anguish.

Her eyes find the back of her teammates—all three men of the original Team 7— fighting Madara and Kabuto in the distance and flinches at TenTen's tortured wail and Lee's sorrowful sniffles.

Neji is the first of them to die, but this was not how it was supposed to go.

* * *

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This was all she has ever dreamed of and everything she has hoped against.

The war is drawing to an end and the last telling battle looms over the horizon, but their allies are dropping around them like flies under the combined strength of Madara's Mangekyou Sharingan and Kabuto's undead shinobi.

They're losing, and she's too far from her teammates to help anyone—too far from Kakashi to catch him when he stumbles under Obito's glare.

The fate of the world rests in the hands of the two boys _—two men—_ she has always placed her faith in, and for a moment she snarls at their backs with the type of hatred she usually reserves for Uchiha Madara.

Sakura would never be a part of their dynamic, and she knows that now. They were almost demigods; they were prodigies and powerhouses and she was not. They were in a league all of their own and she would _never_ reach them. But she loves them both with all of her bleeding heart and it hurts her to see that they have easily forgotten her in the sea of faceless shinobi.

But then Kakashi turns desperate eyes in her direction when Naruto and Sasuke end up being barely enough to push back the enemy, and she realizes then—in the words they don't speak and the things they do—that they will _always_ need her.

But the Allied Forces were losing.

 _They_ were _losing_.

They were tiring and the sole female of Team 7 is the missing piece of the puzzle, and the thought encourages her to pump her strong legs towards them to help.

She had been waiting and preparing for this moment for years; and if Sasuke is the Moon and Naruto is the Sun, then she is the Earth that grounds them.

* * *

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Sakura never reaches her team.

The air crackles and bows under the oppressive weight of chakra. Her lungs burn from the lack of cycling oxygen and she is _so_ tired from healing and fighting, but her desperation to reach her boys manages to overshadow her fatigue.

It's not enough.

She trips over a disembodied arm and it gives an enemy ninja ample time to shatter her cheekbone with his fist and send her body flying. Kakashi's worried shouts barely reach her through the painful haze as she impacts the blood quenched ground, but her finely honed senses save her from certain impalement.

Sakura painfully pulls herself to her feet and Kakashi is shouting at her and it sounds like he's pleading, but she can't understand what he's saying. She's too focused on evading lethal blows and landing critical hits that should have killed but lack the necessary control, so she doesn't hear the desperate warnings coming from the lips of her Sun and her Moon.

Her enemy doesn't give her any room to breathe, and he is close enough for her to see the green of his eyes that remind her of a home that is no longer there. They are so close that their harsh pants entwine together in a mocking semblance of a lover's embrace and the blood running down their faces mingle with each strike.

And that is when she feels it—the sickening pull of a desperate jutsu combined with unknown power of an enemy's last resort.

Sea glass eyes widen in horror as she realizes that she and her enemy are caught in between Kakashi's Kamui and his traitorous best friend's similar technique. She tries to pull away from her enemy's painfully unrelenting grip, but his resigned grin tells her all she needs to know.

The jutsu hits her with a force that tears a tormented scream from her throat and she feels an awful pull from her navel that is unfamiliar and entirely painful. Her eyes find distressed and agonized blue eyes as every molecule in her body is displaced and sent elsewhere in a blinding flash of light that makes everyone avert their gaze.

Sakura never manages to reach her boys and the Earth disappears from beneath her feet.

.

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 ** _A/N: I understand that this seems a little all over the place, but this was once broken into separate drabbles and then put together. Please let me know what you think!_**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: This applies for the whole fic, I do not own Naruto, or Inuyasha.**

 _ **A/N: Sorry for the update spam, I'm restructuring the entire fic!**_

* * *

 _"I was overcome by the sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams,_

 _when you in vain endeavor to fly from impending danger,_

 _and was rooted to the spot."_

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly

* * *

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There once was a time when Higurashi Kagome hated how simple life had become.

She woke up in the mornings, went to school, did her homework, ate dinner, showered, and went to sleep in the evenings. She would occasionally hang out with her friends and talk about boys or celebrity gossip, or she'd spend her afternoons greeting visitors of the Sunset Shrine. Rinse, wash, and repeat.

It was routine, it was monotonous, it was so painfully _simple._

But then on her fifteenth birthday she had been pulled into an ancient well by a half woman, half centipede and her side had been ripped into for a powerful jewel of souls she didn't even know she had.

And life had seemed to lose all of its simplicity since then.

* * *

 _ **.**_

 _ **Sengoku Jidai**_

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It wasn't to say that she hated her life, though.

Kagome never regretted a day spent in the Fuedal Era—even on days where hot showers and modern day plumbing were sorely missed. It's where she had met the closest friends she has ever had, and she loved them fiercely enough to accept whatever Fate had in store for her with open arms and a brilliant grin.

But Inuyasha sure did get on her nerves!

Said inu-hanyou had been pestering her about jewel shards for the last day or two, even though she had told him—repeatedly—that she didn't sense any. This then led to many insults on her behalf and Kagome would be forever grateful for those subjugation beads hanging around his neck.

Even though she had a distinct soft spot for her fluffy eared friend, he was incredibly hot headed and quick to action when bored. And that is why their ragtag group currently found themselves standing in a clearing in the rising dusk with cautious expressions as Inuyasha antagonized his taiyoukai half-brother.

"Oi! Sesshomaru! You finally ready to get that beating you've been running away from?!"

Inuyasha had already drawn tessaiga and held it in front of him threateningly. Kagome couldn't help but feel slightly exasperated; InuYasha was certainly very strong, but was he strong to beat his extremely powerful older brother?

Not quite.

Sesshomaru scoffed in derision. "This Sesshomaru will not waste time on a worthless half-breed."

"Why you!" InuYasha growled and lunged towards the taller inuyoukai, only to stop mid stride to sniff the air. Kagome tensed when Sesshomaru did the same, his eyes calmly scanning the formerly peaceful clearing, and she expanded her miko senses for anything that would give the two pause.

Her brow furrowed in confusion as InuYasha's stance lowered in preparation for something. She didn't understand; she couldn't feel anything besides the youki of the taiyoukai in front of her and that of a few lesser demons, but the fact that both males were staring at a particular direction in tense anticipation made her significantly nervous.

"InuYasha?" Kagome prodded warily, her eyes darting to and fro as Sango shifted the hiraikotsu in front of her protectively.

"Shut up, Kagome," InuYasha rumbled, "Something powerful is coming. Stand behind Sango."

Kagome swallowed the indignation she felt at such rudeness—seriously, the nerve of that man—and shuffled behind Sango who sent her a reassuring grin even as her eyes anxiously roved the area. Minutes went by in tense silence, and Kagome was just about to open her mouth to ask just what the heck was so powerful when she _finally_ felt whatever it was that presented such danger.

But by then it was already upon them, and Kagome had a split second to gasp before she was blinded by a powerfully bright energy that felt nothing like reiki and more like youki. She stumbled back from the sheer force of it with her forearm rising to cover her eyes from the blinding light. Her mind was whirling; she had been a figure in the Sengoku Jidai for three years now and _never_ had she felt such energy before.

It scared her.

"What the hell…"

Kagome opened her eyes at InuYasha's breathed exclamation and _what the hell_ was right. Because there, lying before them, covered head to toe in blood and gore were two humans—a man and a woman. Her compassionate heart couldn't help but be worried for them, as they seemed like two normal human beings that must have been attacked by that powerful youkai with such oppressive energy. They must have been dropped there to die! Kagome wanted to rush to their aid immediately; her honor as a miko would not let her just stand by while they were hurt.

She had just taken a step forward when the woman suddenly scrambled to her feet at the same time the man did. The woman looked around frantically, as if trying to make sense of her surroundings, and Kagome's heart reached out to her.

The woman—whose hair was matted so thickly by blood that she couldn't tell the color—turned wild eyes to the man standing in front of her. His shoulders were shaking, and from her far distance Kagome thought he could be crying.

Oh, those poor things! She knew how awful it felt to be taken so far from home by some awful demon and discarded—except _she_ wasn't mauled like those two were. Kagome wanted to ease their fears, wanted to wash away their hurts and escort them safely back to their villages.

However, that train of thought soon died with the dry laughter that rose into the air. Kagome's brow furrowed in confusion and Sango sent her an equally baffled look. That was _not_ the response she expected from them, and the way Miroku was staring at the two with raised eyebrows made her all the more confused. Miroku was the self-proclaimed expert on human and youkai behavior; if this was confusing him, then Kagome had no hope of understanding.

She also couldn't comprehend why Sesshomaru and Inuyasha were focused on the pair so intently. They seemed like a simple—if not crazy—injured couple to her…

Was there something she was not seeing? There had to be something she was missing! Multiple theories tumbled in her head: were they demons? Did they belong to Naraku? Were they after the jewel shards? Questions without answers filled her head to bursting until she was startled out of her thoughts when the bloody man began speaking.

"Ah, Haruno-san," the man began mockingly, and Kagome subtly shivered at his greasy tone. The way he spoke simultaneously made her extremely uncomfortable and her hackles rise. The others—except for Sesshomaru, whose mask was firmly in place—apparently felt the same: Shippou's tail bristled, Miroku and Sango shifted their stances, and a low growl rumbled from Inuyasha's throat.

"So strong, and yet so weak to have been caught in your own comrade's technique!"

His raspy voice rang over the clearing, and it appeared as though the ragtag group was largely ignored despite standing only a hundred meters away. But Kagome didn't dare move her eyes from the gory duo a few meters away from them. Cobalt orbs swept over their figures anxiously, taking in their bloody faces first, then the torn vest the woman wore over a long sleeved shirt to the ripped haori hanging off of the man's frame, down their _modern day pants_ , to end at closed toed boots and open toed sandals.

Kagome grimaced at the blood that covered them entirely—from their heads to their feet —and wondered at what he meant by "technique." She didn't like being confused; it was why, apart from spending all of her time in the Feudal Era, she hadn't excelled in high school!

The woman visibly trembled in fear, or was it anger? Kagome couldn't tell from so far away; and the woman's stance was strung tight as her hands balled into fists.

"It must be hard," continued the man she had mentally dubbed _Major Asshole,_ "to stand in the shadow of your powerful teammates—to remain so pitifully weak!"

Oh, now that was rude! Kagome's compassionate fury reared its ugly head at the insults the man was throwing at the much smaller woman. She was obviously hurt, and to rub salt in her wounds like that for something so trivial was detestable. Some girls just so happened to be weaker than their teammates in sports, _so what?_

Kagome could relate! She wasn't as good as Ayumi when it came to swimming, but that wasn't something to be attacked for! She wasn't even aware that they played sports in this era, anyway!

And then the woman's head shot up as she screeched so unstably it demanded all of her attention, "Shut up! You know _nothing!"_

Clearly, sports were a touchy subject for her.

"Ah, but I do, Haruno-san!" His voice boomed over her objections, "But it doesn't matter. Look at where you are! You can't help them, and they will fail. Madara is infallible, and the alliance will fall!"

The man was spouting crazy nonsense that Kagome could not follow. Is this what her friends felt when she talked about things from home? If so, she could now understand their frustration. However, the two youkai of the group seemed as puzzled and wary as she was. The man spoke of an alliance, but the only alliance she knew of was the tentative one strung between her friends and the Lord of the West. And who was Madara?

Kagome heard Inuyasha begin to lose his patience with just standing by and watching. His chest rumbled with the strength of his growls and he stepped forward to open his mouth and claim the pair's attention.

But before he could even speak, the group snapped back as a wave of pure, unadulterated power with no taint of good or evil exploded into the air. Kagome's reiki flared in response and she—along with the others—were stunned speechless. The woman's stance shifted as the man's bellowing laughter ensconced itself in the air once more.

" _There_ it is," he cried condescendingly, "Tsunade-hime's legacy!"

Kagome was now sure that this was most definitely _not_ about sports.

The woman bared her teeth hatefully and power rose into the air once more, but it was entirely different from that of before. This power was stifling. It stole the breath from Kagome's lungs as if she had taken her last and her knees knocked together in sheer terror. Dread coursed through her veins like an icy river and she fell to her knees when it proved too much to handle. Sango whimpered beside her and her hands shook as they tightened around her hiraikotsu while Shippou had dropped into a dead faint.

Kagome had felt fear before; the all-consuming terror that swelled in her chest and paralyzed her whenever they fought Naraku, the type that made her wish for death just so that she could escape—but this was entirely different.

This type of fear made her wish she had never been born, that she had never walked into that stupid well house years ago, that she had never pulled the arrow from Inuyasha's chest.

This fear showed her, her own death.

The power in the air felt like Sesshomaru's youki when he was well and truly angry, when he demanded death and chaos, and Kagome didn't have to chance a glance at him to know that he was also affected by it. She supposed it was rare that someone would have the type of oppressive strength to match him, and she therefore kept her eyes glued onto the only two unknown factors around her.

As such, Kagome's wide eyes saw every moment of when the woman lunged at the man with inhuman speed to plunge her _glowing_ fist into the man's chest. She watched in slack jawed disbelief as the man narrowly evaded the blow and rounded on the woman to thrust what appeared to be a dagger into her thigh.

Kagome's senses screamed _danger!_ but she could only gasp as the woman leapt away to unflinchingly pull out the dagger and grip it in her own hands. Blood spurted from the wound before the woman attacked the man once more, and Kagome knew then that something was not right with the two. They were too fast for her eyes to be human, too gracefully lethal to be anything but youkai. But Kagome didn't feel any youki or reiki from them—just pure untainted power.

Her blood thrummed in her veins as another flare of oppressive power filled the air and suddenly the two were on top of each other. She watched in abject horror as they danced around each other with punches and kicks that spattered the grass around them. The fact that she didn't know what they were unnerved her terribly; youkai she could handle, but these unfamiliar beings made her gut clench worriedly.

Kagome's eyes flew to Inuyasha in alarm as he made to jump into the fray to stop the two from killing each other, but was stopped by Sesshomaru's hand on the scruff of his neck.

"What the hell, bastard?!" Inuyasha cried irately as he struggled in his brother's steely grip, "They're going to kill each other!"

Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed at the inu-hanyou and shook him once, "Cease your foolishness, mutt. One is already dead."

Kagome's head swiveled back to the inhuman pair so fast she risked whip lash, her arms tightening around Shippou's unconscious form from when she had gather him into her arms, and unfortunately caught the tail end of the woman extracting her hand from the man's chest with a loud squelch.

Bile rose in Kagome's throat at the sight of a red mass in her hand, the goopy mess as she crushed it between her fingers threatening to resurface her lunch before tossing it to the side. She didn't want to think about what it had been, and instead focused on the woman as she made some strange hand signs. Kagome reared back as hot, sweltering fire blazed from the woman's lips onto the corpse and burned it until there was nothing but ash.

Silence reigned supreme in the aftermath, and then the woman turned to them. Even from her distance, Kagome could see the unnervingly luminescent glow of the woman's eyes as they scanned over them warily—dangerously. Heedless of the taiyoukai's warning pulse of youki, the woman stepped forward towards them.

And then she crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, and Kagome felt like she could finally breathe.

* * *

 **A/N: One more revision to go!**


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: Revised 3/13/2018.**_

* * *

 _OODA Loop_

 _Observe, Orient, Decide, Act_

* * *

 _._

 _._

When Sakura was 10, she learned about torture and interrogation for the first time in the Academy.

She had shifted uncomfortably in her seat as Ino-chan's daddy detailed the various ways to dissociate themselves in order to cope with physical pain. They were shown slides of torture inflicted injuries and then read the symptoms of a broken psyche while Sakura tried not to shut her eyes to the gruesome images. She listened in uncharacteristically grim silence as Inoichi-san meticulously taught their class what to do in case of capture and held onto Ino-chan's hand as he stressed the importance of silence for their—and the village's—sake. A shinobi's livelihood was based on silence, he said, a vocal ninja was a dead one and lessons never really seemed to be the same since then.

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* * *

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Before the war, when missions had started becoming more and more dangerous, Tsunade-shishou would always reiterate what to do in case she was overwhelmed by the enemy and found herself prisoner. She always said—in joking tones that covered her worry—that she'd hate to have to send an extraction team because her prized apprentice couldn't punch her way out of things.

And that was why Sakura was currently pretending to be asleep. The first rule of capture—wherein the shinobi had been incapacitated prior to—was, upon waking, to give no indication of consciousness and observe. As such, Sakura kept her breaths and heartbeat carefully even while she tried to make sense of her difficult situation.

Her analytical mind told her the obvious: she was far, far away from home. She had been hit by Kakashi's and Obito's Kamui before being displaced; so, knowing what she did about the technique, she felt she could safely assume she was in another dimension. This did not bode well for her, and bitter tears gathered behind her closed eyelids at the theory.

 _She had been so close._

She had been steps away from her boys—steps away from showing them how she belonged with them—and it had all been taken from her. The only thing that rose above her bitter sadness was the frigid worry that plagued her heart. She didn't know where she was, and she would not know the war's outcome—if her loved ones lived or died or _what—_ if she did not find a way home.

Sakura's senses subtly swept the surrounding area, leading to the second step in Captured Shinobi 101: captured Shinobi must orient themselves and filter any and all information obtained from the first step.

The ground beneath her was soft, and the uncomfortable poking she felt through the thin material of her shirt was most likely due to lying on her back on grass. Her flak jacket was missing. Her ears and sense of smell told her that there was a stream very close by, and the bird song in the distance gave the impression of relative peace. Were Sakura a regular civilian, she would have been lulled into a sort of calm.

Except, Sakura was a kunoichi, and her senses screamed at her that something (beyond the obvious foreign dimension dilemma) was not right. She was not a sensor by any means—that accolade was solely reserved for the Hyuuga clan—but the subtle sweep of her chakra told her that there were multiple entities by her body.

Very _close_ to her body.

The nearest person was a few feet away and her hands subconsciously twitched for the comforting weight of a kunai, but she curbed her desire for fear of being discovered. No matter, her hands were just as deadly. Taking stock of her chakra reserves, Sakura was pleased to note that they were almost full. It was a pleasant feeling, one she hadn't felt since the beginning of the war when chakra exhaustion and paranoia didn't go hand in hand.

The knowledge was bittersweet, for things had gone horribly wrong since then and she had never had the required rest to replenish her stores. It forced her to focus on the unknown around her as nearly full chakra reserves meant a longer period of unconsciousness, and it made her nearly sick with panic. Forcibly calming herself, Sakura refocused and deduced that there were six entities in the vicinity.

That was good; if she could fight Sasori of the Red Sands and his one hundred puppets and win, then she could face off against six unknown factors and survive with minor wounds. If something _did_ happen, then she could always rely on her last resort. She had nothing else to lose—everything worth caring about was too far to reach, anyway. Mentally nodding at her pep talk, Sakura tentatively probed her captor's energies with her own chakra.

It took all of the self-discipline she had acquired through her years as a kunoichi to keep from rearing back in surprise at the power that poked back. It felt almost like a subtle mixture of medical chakra and Naruto's chakra when he entered Sage Mode—but not quite. It was pure, and felt like warm, sunny days with Naruto and Ino as they laughed and ate ice cream in the shade of the Shodai's forest. It made her think of her mother's embrace, of Tsunade's rare grins, and of Kakashi's happy eye crinkle. But it also made her think of an overflowing sink, of a jar left open, of the burns on her fingertips when she used too much medical ninjutsu.

Sakura had been entering people's chakra networks for years now, and every single person's chakra felt unique. Naruto's felt like the early morning breeze in Spring, whereas Kakashi's felt like ozone in the air before lightning struck. Ino's chakra felt like cool water on a hot day, and Hinata's chakra felt like soft, silk petals brushing against bare skin. Sakura had once been told that her own chakra felt like the soothing caress of a lover, of joy and peace and all things one could possibly love about another person. (She had been embarrassingly pleased by this information.)

But this—this energy was unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was unblemished and whole, without a Yin or Yang, and it put her on edge—it was unnatural. It was not chakra. However, it was present only in _one_ person, and it was not her cause for alarm.

The other three's energies felt like the whirling chakra of an unrestrained jinchuuriki. It reminded Sakura of Gaara during the Chuunin Exams so long ago, of Naruto when he was inconsolably angry and more beast than man. But, again, this too did not feel like chakra. This power felt like a turbulent ocean beneath a glass surface constantly beating against its encasement until some seeped through the cracks. However, while one source was significantly smaller and another felt like a dulled blade, it was the last that made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end. It felt tightly controlled, yet it was massive; it was dark and violent in the way the Kyuubi had felt when Naruto almost lost himself to the its hatred completely.

But it, too, was unique.

Her instincts screamed, _run! Get away! Predator! Predator! Run!_ But she was rooted to the spot as it burned over the entire area. It felt like standing on the precipice of a cliff with her toes hanging over the edge and waiting for someone to push her towards a rocky death below; it felt like being held in the giant maw of a rabid dog, her delicate bones grinding together until it swallowed her whole. Physically, however, it felt like multiple bee stings against her skin and it almost made her laugh.

No, these powers were not chakra, of that she was sure. And although Sakura was a genius in her own right, she could not fully comprehend what they could possibly be. Her finely honed senses were demanding she get away from the unknown, but an inconsistency in the foreign energies stayed her movement.

She only felt the energies of four beings, but she heard the low voices of six. Probing with her chakra again, Sakura could not suppress the icy shock that stilled her breathing for a split second before evening out once more.

She couldn't feel the last two because they didn't have chakra.

The last two people in the group had _no_ traces of chakra—or even energy—in their systems and it threw her entire intellectual mind into a loop even as her heart screamed _impossible!_

All living things had chakra—from the trees at her back to the birds in their depths! A person without chakra was a person without life, and Sakura had the feeling that these people were very unlike the Edo Tensei's undead ninja. Her stomach flip flopped at how all of these energies—or lack thereof—had derailed her plans for escape.

She had to find a new way to get away from whoever or whatever these things were, and she struggled to contain her rising anxiety. War veteran she may be, but she had fought against her own kind, and she was awfully afraid.

 _Thing, Sakura, think! What would Shishou do?_

Well, if she were being completely honest with herself, the Fifth Hokage would have punched her way out of any sort of predicament and then gotten raging drunk in celebration. Seeing as how she was sorely outnumbered and doubtful of any type of alcohol in the immediate vicinity, that just would not do.

Sakura didn't know for how long she laid there in the grass, limbs uncomfortably still and thinking of ways to get out of her situation. Deep down she knew that she had _no way_ of getting home—she didn't have a bloodline limit, nor was there a Sharingan conveniently lying around—and escaping could possibly prove useless, but she'd worry about that later.

Her first priority was escape, and _then_ she'd succumb to her well-deserved panic attack.

Later, Sakura would curse her tendency to get lost in her own thoughts. She had just weaved a viable plan of escape (run like her ass was on fire) when she finally noticed the pregnant silence hovering above her. Quenching the apprehension that twisted in her gut, she waited with baited breath as shifting clothing sounded extremely loud to her oversensitive hears.

"We know you're awake, wench! Stop pretending!"

 _Oh, hell._

Realizing that her plans were shot to oblivion, and that the only way out was through hopeful diplomacy or possible bloodshed (or running like hell), Sakura pushed herself up to a sitting position to level wary eyes on her presumed captors.

 _You've got to be kidding me._

Trying—and failing—to keep her expression neutral, narrowed bright beryl eyes tried to comprehend what laid before them. Rosy lips parted slightly in bewilderment as she attempted to process the _adorable_ , furry puppy ears on the man she knew had called her "wench."

Archaic insult aside, Sakura was painfully reminded of that silly mission so long ago where Nekobaa had lent Team 7—the _original_ Team 7—cat ears for their confrontation with Nekomata. But those were fake, and these...twitched in...irritation? She really wanted to rub her eyes—just in case she was hallucinating—but that was unwise. They twitched again and she knew then, without a doubt, that standing in front of her was a man with actual dog ears sprouting out the top of his head.

If Kiba were in her place, he'd probably be howling with envy.

Dismissing him (because _no man_ who called _her_ wench would be blessed with her attention), but still keeping his strange form in her peripherals, Sakura's gaze wandered over to the others. Her eyes sought out the one with the power that felt like sunshine and widened when they came upon a mere slip of a girl who stared at her with wide, cobalt eyes.

The girl swallowed nervously before offering a tremulous smile, and Sakura's jaw clenched at the small kindness. That—no matter the circumstance—was not proper captor behavior and it put her even more on edge than she already was. It all felt off to her, like she was being tricked into trusting them, but her eyes were unexpectedly drawn to the small body that stared at her with wide emerald eyes cradled in the girl's arms.

Sakura's heart softened at the sight; she hadn't seen a child in many, many years since her deployment to the front lines, and children were their soft spot—even if they did feel like a demon host. Then the little boy shifted, and a small furry mass the same auburn color of his hair twitched into view. Balking at the sight, because that was obviously a _tail_ , she entertained the thought that he was probably the girl's summons.

She didn't know what type, but summons she could handle—even if this particular one felt different. Maybe he was a stronger summons than most?

Pursing her lips as her brow furrowed, calculating eyes shifted to the girl's side where two more people—a man and woman—observed her cautiously. They were the ones without chakra, but they seemed like normal civilians to her. Their bodies were soft and lacked the telltale rigidity all shinobi, even genin, possessed. But they each held something that could be used as a weapon with familiarity: the woman had a large boomerang nestled at her side, and the man cradled a staff between lose hands. Sakura kept an eye on them as well because she knew well enough to look underneath the underneath.

That only left one source of power—the one that made her chakra churn violently in her gut and gather in her hands—and it was secluded beyond the tree line. She kept her eyes glued to it and expanded her chakra until it brushed against the burning energy, but recoiled in alarm when it flared warningly as if angered by the unsolicited probe.

Her chakra also flared angrily, as if it too were furious at the uncomfortable pressure, and the burning in her gut and the bee stings against her skin increased to irritating amounts. It was a painful annoyance, but her instincts told her that she was still at its mercy; and she was _not_ okay with that.

And then the most beautiful man Sakura had ever seen emerged from the shadow of leaves and her lips parted unabashedly in a silent gasp. If she thought Sasuke was beautiful, then this man was ethereal. It was shameful to admit, but even at 19 years old and war torn, Sakura was still slightly boy crazy and hadn't seen a decent looking man since before the war.

Actually, that wasn't true...most of her friends were good looking; but she had fought, bled, and wept with them. They were more like brothers than potential lovers. The also, however, did not hold a candle to the being who was currently staring at her in clear disgust.

"You will tell This Sesshomaru who you are, immediately."

His deep, velvety voice caressed her ears until her admiring thoughts came to a screeching halt.

 _Did he really just refer to himself in the third person?_

And was that blatant _contempt_ in his sinful voice? His power pushed against her oppressively, as if bullying her to submit to him, and Sakura's temper reared its ugly head as her eyebrow twitched agitatedly.

Standing on strong legs and happily noting that all of her previous injuries had self-healed, Sakura squared her shoulders and glared at the self-righteous, demanding taller man.

"Actually, I think I'll pass on that," she drawled, her gloved hands curling into fists when a low growl invaded the space between them, "Why don't you tell me where I am, instead?"

.

.

 _tbc_


End file.
